


you love like you've always been lonely

by pertunes



Category: Hemlock Grove
Genre: Biblical References, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 02:03:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2370374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pertunes/pseuds/pertunes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lead us not into temptation is not a popular phrase amongst Godfreys. He thinks he heard it once at a funeral, and right now he's got Peter in his lap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you love like you've always been lonely

**Author's Note:**

> title from ben howard's bones
> 
> if i didn't warn/tag for something i should have, let me know.

Roman thinks he was very young when he found out he could make people do things just by wanting it so much, just by thinking it hard enough, but he can’t remember. He can’t remember, really, if it’s just because his last name can knock down buildings and open doors.

His mother, though. He’s seen maids faint when she snaps her fingers. Shelley grows vibrant blue in the dark of her room, ever since they were little, a living nightlight.

When Peter comes, his thighs are too tense and his mouth is wide open, and Roman is _fascinated_.

-

Peter kicks in his sleep.

Roman is not very used to sharing a bed and not very good at it either, but he tries because Peter gets sleep-eyed and dopey, even in the middle of the day, and he enfolds Roman into bed against all protests. (Because sleeping with Peter is better than sleeping alone, now.) His heels judder out, sometimes, and smash Roman’s shins or his knees or his thighs and Roman flings awake, coming up for air and blinking wide-eyed as Peter sleeps on, oblivious, content.

He has a week of nightmares and Roman catches him in the middle, skittering half off the bed, and he reaches for him, forcing down the shrill voice inside of him demanding _where are you going?_

“Fuckin’ relax,” Peter’s rough voice murmurs, and he shifts back into Roman’s arms.

He can just barely hear Peter’s heartbeat, mellow and even, under the rapid pace of his own. He’s trying.

-

Lead us not into temptation is not a popular phrase amongst Godreys. He thinks he heard it once at a funeral.

He gets Peter in his lap—and he can’t remember if that’s because he likes it or Roman does, he can’t remember if that matters—and he gets him off once, almost twice, before Peter’s even gone for his own belt.

He’s got Peter in his lap and half their clothes off and they haven’t stopped kissing in so long, they never do. Peter nuzzles and gets his hand between them before Roman stops that, hefting his arms over his shoulders because he’s not done yet, going for the juncture at Peter’s neck, his collarbone.

“Oh, sh-shit,” Peter moans, surprised, and Roman can taste it, his shoulders starting to shake while he laughs. “Fuckin’ biter.” He grunts, Roman sinking in deeper, to the edge of where he can’t pull away.

Peter has long fingernails and long hair, the easiest target for Roman’s pulling aside from his tail, and when he does he gets those hands at his back. He sucks at the spot he just teethed raw and Peter digs, dragging out eight lines along the span of Roman’s skin, symmetrical wings on shoulder blades.

Roman tilts his head back, smiling, high. Peter looks like he wants to roll his eyes but he doesn’t say anything; he knows Roman’s a hair-trigger now and he’ll be done no matter who makes the next move, spilling messily between them.

Deliver us from evil, is how Roman thinks that ends. He breaks into a laugh, eyes shut, and he can feel Peter’s hair falling on his face when he leans in to kiss him.

-

They _do_ do normal things, is the thing. They fall into tradition, ridiculously, a couple weekends a month of cheap pizza and bad TV, when Roman forgets and Peter tells him he needs to eat more than his own bullshit.

He follows Peter up the steps of the trailer and, “Mother _fuck_ ,” he hisses when his head knocks into the door casing he always forgets he’s too tall for.

He can hear Peter snort. “Okay?” he asks, throwing him a beer. Roman never drank beer until he met Peter.

Peter sprawls on the sofa and Roman follows, still wincing. “I’m gonna buy you a house with higher ceilings,” he mutters. He half-expects Peter to punch him but nothing happens, and he regrets saying it when he notices Peter seems to tighten up throughout the night, body folded in on itself while he gorges on pizza.

They don’t fuck and Roman drives home alone with the top down.

-

At school, Peter ignores him in the hallway, tells him he has some detention for skipping class, and Roman gets shrugged off when he tries to drive him home, watches Peter get on the bus instead, which he finds endlessly confusing.

He texts him a few times and waits a few more days of radio silence—and he knows Peter’s cell service is bad but not _that_ bad—before he corners him in the back lot at school.

“Okay, are we _fighting_?” he asks, stopping Peter in his tracks. He sometimes stoops when he talks to Peter, and it’s annoying and hurts his back, but he’ll tolerate it, reaching a hand out to his shoulder to stop him from bouldering past.

Peter sighs. “The fuck are you doing, I’m trying to get to my bus.”

“Yeah, exactly, what’s wrong with you?” Roman asks and Peter’s face morphs to disbelief, annoyance, like he’s going to bolt, but Roman can feel the second he gives in.

“Sometimes you piss me off,” he says, through another sigh, and his voice sounds different but Roman can’t pin it.

He scowls. “So, you piss me off on like, a daily basis and I’m never a bitch about it.”

Peter stares incredulously. “Oh, never,” he says flatly. He starts to push past Roman again, “I’m late, I gotta go.”

Roman tightens his hand on Peter’s shoulder immediately before he backs off. “Just tell me what it is, you know, this-this sucks, this is bullshit.”

“Roman,” Peter starts, moving to leave again, and Roman tries again, “Okay. I’m. Sorry. Sorry for pissing you off. For what I did.”

For a moment, Peter eyes him. “Yeah?” he asks and waits until Roman nods emphatically at him. “Okay.”

Roman deflates, hands at his side, awkward. “Can I drive you home?” he asks.

Peter nods, easy. Roman’s hands feel empty without Peter under them and he takes his backpack from his shoulder, carries it to the car. Peter doesn’t say anything.

-

He makes the mistake of telling Peter to “come here, boy,” once, when he’s shifted. It comes thoughtlessly, like instinct, in the dawn light of Peter’s exhausted wolf-form returning from the night, and he only ever says it again when Peter’s too tired to bite back.

-

Roman wakes to cold bleeding in from the other side of the bed. He wouldn’t notice, he knows, if it weren’t for the fact that Peter gives off heat like a furnace.

He skips time and he’s half-dressed and running down the staircase. He doesn’t remember getting his keys but they’re in the engine and he’s miles from home already, driving to some pull he’s not sure is really there or if he’s made it up.

Peter’s not in the road, he’s endlessly thankful, where some car could come out of nowhere, blind on a corner—

“Hey,” Roman says. He made enough noise coming down the embankment that anyone with Peter’s hearing would know he was there, but he never moved, knelt in the dead leaves and dirt of the wood. “Peter, hey,” he says again, stepping forward.

“How did you find me?” Peter asks.

Roman doesn’t know. Peter’s facing away from him and he ignores his question. “What are you doing out here?” He can see his breath where it puffs out before his face, hints of light from the moon shining through the trees.

“I got lost.” Peter stands and Roman doesn’t mean to take a step back, but he does. His eyes are clear, face open; he looks like he just woke up.

“What, what do you mean you got lost?” Roman asks. “How did you get out here?”

Peter looks up at him, brow furrowed, upset. His hands are dirty. “How did you _find me_?”

“I don’t know,” Roman says, high in his throat. “Get in the car.” _Please_ , he doesn’t say, just barely.

He drives them back in silence and lets Peter cling under the covers of his bed. He puts a bell on his bedroom door, something from one of their old servants, but it doesn’t matter.

-

He drives out again twice and finds Peter in that same spot both times.

The second, he only has his boxers and a sock on. His knees are dirty when he stands.

Roman doesn’t care about being heard, he’s nearly running, slipping off his coat to throw over Peter.

“Ffffuck,” Peter hisses, enveloped suddenly. It goes down to his calves, almost comically, and Roman holds onto the collar, hip to hip with him. “I knew you’d f-f-find me,” he smirks.

“Aren’t dogs supposed to be good at finding their way home?” Roman says, and when Peter doesn’t tell him to go fuck himself, he wants _out_ of these woods, gripping his shoulder and hauling him away to the car.

Peter’s heels dig in, of course, or he’s just not very good at walking right now, and he nearly takes Roman down with him. “Come on, stay up,” Roman says, terrified, like if Peter falls he won’t get back up. His own hands are shaking and he can’t say it’s from the cold.

“Something’s happening again,” Peter says, loud, disjointed. “Something’s gonna—I don’t—are you having dreams?”

“No,” Roman says firmly and it’s not a lie. They reach the car, somehow, and it feels like lifetimes later. “Come on.”

“Take me to Destiny’s,” Peter says instead of getting in.

“No,” Roman tells him. He’s going to shove Peter in the car and put his seatbelt on; he just wants him _inside_ , he feels like that’s the only way he can fix him right now. “Later. Tomorrow. We’re not going tonight.”

Peter slides in, finally, and Roman follows, blasting the heat. “You’ll come with me?” he asks, appeased.

Roman nods, starting back on the road. “Whatever we have to do,” he says. He slides his arm around Peter, the scratchy wool of his coat around his shoulders, thinks _mine_.

-

Peter blows him in the shower. It’s a new one for Roman, and he’s not going to complain when Peter’s on his knees in the giant shower, dirt streaming off his body down the drain.

When he gets close, he looks around for one of the razors Olivia keeps in the shower, but there’s nothing. One hand grips uselessly at the white wall behind him and the other is in Peter’s hair, a knotted mess they’re going to have to rewash, and when he comes his vision goes spotty, black orbs dotting his eyes. When he focuses again, Peter’s panting into his neck, cock softening at Roman’s hip, and he’s almost sad he missed it.

-

In the dream, Peter stalks toward him in that spot in the woods. “This isn’t where it happens,” he says.

“No,” Roman agrees. He falls then, falls back right into the swampy marsh surrounding Godfrey Steel, and he’s pissed because his shoes are leather.

There are snakes trailing in front of him, heads cut off, and he raises his eyebrows, amused. His eyes follow their path, and there is Peter on his back, gutted, open eyes staring at nothing, his wolf lying in a heap next to him.

Roman’s stomach lurches.

He touches soft black fur, reaching down to a cold, breathless body. He wants to reach for Peter but he can’t with his ribs out in the air and—

“You couldn’t do this without me, could you?” It comes from Peter’s mouth, his eyes vacant and unmoving, but Roman hears it in his head, too.

“Do what?” he asks, falling back on his haunches, but his mind says _no_ , feels it echo around him, and he knows Peter heard it.

Birds flock overhead, fleeing the sound of his voice. When Roman looks back, maggots have taken Peter’s eyes.

Roman’s eyes fling open, tearing out of bed down to his bathroom, and he throws up.

He feels Peter come in, scary silent, sitting on the edge of the tub next to him. Roman pants, catching his breath, and Peter rests his chin in his hand, reaching the other out to Roman’s shoulder, watching.

“Probably don’t have to go see Destiny now,” he says quietly and Roman glares.

-

They get one night that isn’t sleepless and Roman still jerks awake when he realizes he’s in bed alone. Peter’s up before him, a first, says he’s going for a run while it’s still cold out.

He does that sometimes, on full moons, but Roman knows that’s not for another day. Peter put an app on his phone.

“Don’t worry, go back to sleep,” Peter mutters before he even says anything. He’s tying his shoes while Roman lies there, eyeing him; he’s wearing Roman’s hoodie, he thinks, it’s too long on him.

“I’ll be back soon,” Peter’s saying. Roman watches him stretch, pull the creaks of sleep from his body. “I can find my way home this time.” He pats Roman’s ankle on his way out, taking the stairs two at a time, Roman can hear.

He stares at the ceiling, muzzy, sleep crowding back in again.

Peter’s body, on occasion, can be used as a personal heater, while Roman’s blood runs cold. He sleeps sprawled, vulnerable to open windows and doors and limbs akimbo, snoring on his back. Roman’s legs bounce and he orders the rarest meat possible and gets mad when it’s too brown and he is slowly, slowly reaching for fewer sharp objects than he used to. If one of Peter’s rare faults is that he sometimes has to leave and come back, Roman figures he can deal with that.


End file.
